A Paradox, a Few Traces, and a Light: The Pains and Fears of Musicians as Silent Echoes of the Paradigms of Western Musical Tradition

Abstract

This paper presents some reflections on the paradox that emerges in some musicians between a facet of the musical experience that is spontaneous and anchored in enjoyment, and another that has somehow been “contaminated” by physical, emotional and mental marks, with an emphasis on fear in the relationship with music. We propose, based on our experience as musicians, educational managers, and teachers, that, in the formal music education system, we find the origin to several of these traces when it turns too much towards the product and towards the mastery of the means (techniques, analytical knowledge, etc.) as ends and not as means for sensitive expression. We find a friction between the institutional habitus and the idiosyncrasy of the musician in training who is permanently situated in an “interstitial tension” between the canon and his own inner world. We propose that this type of education focused on the technical and analytical mastery of canonical knowledge neglects the link of musicians with their own inner world and its expression through music, and thus the power of individual voices is wasted and the appearance of pathologies (physical, emotional, mental) that manifest themselves with different levels of intensity in people, is overlooked. Finally, we propose, as an alternative, a somatic perspective that provides light on the development of self-awareness integrating body, mind and emotion, and that favors the search for one’s own voice in the artistic context of the musician in relation to himself, to others and to the life situations he goes through. A perspective in which a permanent question is at the center of the sense of the profession: Why do we make music?